DWC & Soil: Verb's Purple Puncher Autos, Mars Hydro TS 1000

[Verbalist]

@FelipeBlu
Heres labels of GHE’s Micro, Root Booster and Silicate

Micro:

Silicate:

Root Booster:

Does this help?

 

[FelipeBlu]

Excellent - most helpful!
Almost there..
Can you provide labels for Grow and Bloom - do they contain anything besides NPK, like Mg and S?

 

[FelipeBlu]

Also, any chance you can obtain a water quality report?

 

[bluter]

dwc doesn't usually take off till it hits the bucket. have you been top feeding at all ?
they can use a bit of top feed at first.
roots look close. it should probably start to hit now.

i'm not at all certain what's going on nute wise.

water wise dwc and rdwc always run better on RO water. the more variables you control the better it runs. water is kind of the canvas. it's always easier to start with a blank slate. i still use RO even in circumstances where it isn't really needed.

the other things is bubbles. dwc really likes a lot of air. cauldron boiling away activity in the buckets is the ticket.
shoot for too much air.

 

[FelipeBlu]

I have to say that the Silica label is quite confusing. The French text says 13.46% CaO, which is 0.1346 x 0.71 (%Ca in CaO) = 9.6% Ca. But the English text doesn’t indicate any calcium - just “carbonates”.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Well, with the available essential information, it looks like a good mix would be something like:

BioBizz CalMag - 0.5ml/L
TA Silica - 0.125g/L
TA FloraMicro (soft water) - 0.5ml/L
TA FloraGro - 1ml/L
TA FloraBloom - 0.5ml/L

This provides:

64ppm N
17ppm P
81ppm K
57ppm Ca (plus whatever is in tap water)
35ppm Mg (ditto)
29ppm S
25ppm Si
plus acceptable levels of micros

 

[Verbalist]

Excellent - most helpful!
Almost there..
Can you provide labels for Grow and Bloom - do they contain anything besides NPK, like Mg and S?

No they dont, thats why I didn’t post their labels. NPK of Gro was 3-1-6 and Bloom was 0-5-4

Also, any chance you can obtain a water quality report?

Couldn’t find a proper one in english… But basicly tap waters here between 8.1-8.4pH and its very soft. Barely any Ca or Mg. Base waters around 7pH but they rise up the tap/drinking water pH because of the pipes or some shit…

Its in Finnish as well, but Guess u can understand some of the abbreviations.

I have to say that the Silica label is quite confusing. The French text says 13.46% CaO, which is 0.1346 x 0.71 (%Ca in CaO) = 9.6% Ca. But the English text doesn’t indicate any calcium - just “carbonates”.

Lol u dont miss a thing. But yeah thats true. And I would rely on the French label, because theyre French.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Kiitos!

Yes, the symbols for elements/ions are universal - but I was surprised by how close some words are to english.

 

[Verbalist]

dwc doesn't usually take off till it hits the bucket. have you been top feeding at all ?
they can use a bit of top feed at first.
roots look close. it should probably start to hit now.

i'm not at all certain what's going on nute wise.

water wise dwc and rdwc always run better on RO water. the more variables you control the better it runs. water is kind of the canvas. it's always easier to start with a blank slate. i still use RO even in circumstances where it isn't really needed.

the other things is bubbles. dwc really likes a lot of air. cauldron boiling away activity in the buckets is the ticket.
shoot for too much air.

What did u exactly mean by ”dwc doesn’t usually take off til it hits the bucket”?

And yes Ive top fed her before the roots came thru the bottom. Top fed her twice with plain tap water (~8ph) and couple times with about ~6ph water with Root Booster. But thats like a week ago. The whole net cup and RW has dried from the top and center.
And hopefully she hits it soon what ever it is xD
Right now the newest growth looks green and healthy, no signs of a excess or deficiency. But the stem/stalk being still very thin, and nodes as well… Looks like shes having hard times carrying the first three fingers or then something is causing droopines as well.

And I totally get that why Americans prefer RO water. But from what Ive seen and heard from friends growing in any kind of hydro setup they never really have problems with water. Neither doesn’t use Hydroguards or other similar supplements. Here I would say ppl goes more like all about controlling the water temp and keeping it steady and secondly keepin it sterile as possible.
But obv those supplements are handy and for the first timers it allows a bit more room for errors.

Then the oxygen. Having kinda small reservoir (15L/4gallon) plus air pump which pumps 252l/h and inside the res theres kind of ”a platform” where you place the air stone to lay, so its not sitting in the bottom. Laying on that platform it makes nice big deep bubbles and then top part of the stone keep making those smaller sprinkles. Its pretty well designed and that design guarantees enough oxygen for the roots.

 

[FelipeBlu]

When you want to boost the dose, the next mix could be:

0.5ml/L CalMag
0.25ml/L Silica
0.75ml/L Micro
1.5ml/L Grow
0.75ml/L Bloom

This provides:

96 N
26 P
122 K
82 + 19 (tap water) Ca
50 + 1.5 (tap water) Mg
44 S
50 Si

 

[Verbalist]

Well, with the available essential information, it looks like a good mix would be something like:

BioBizz CalMag - 0.5ml/L
TA Silica - 0.125g/L
TA FloraMicro (soft water) - 0.5ml/L
TA FloraGro - 1ml/L
TA FloraBloom - 0.5ml/L

This provides:

64ppm N
17ppm P
81ppm K
57ppm Ca (plus whatever is in tap water)
35ppm Mg (ditto)
29ppm S
25ppm Si
plus acceptable levels of micros

When you want to boost the dose, the next mix could be:

0.5ml/L CalMag
0.25ml/L Silica
0.75ml/L Micro
1.5ml/L Grow
0.75ml/L Bloom

This provides:

96 N
26 P
122 K
82 + 19 (tap water) Ca
50 + 1.5 (tap water) Mg
44 S
50 Si

I’ll write these up and do the res change tomorrow
So is it better to have slightly higher amount of K than N? Started to search more about Phosphorus. Turns out red/purple stems are caused by the lack of Phosphorus. Also older/lower leaves start to curl/wilt down and those brown spots could apper too.

feels like Im just finding more and more syptoms which refers to some kind of deficiencies.
..By looking at them how they currently look:

Newest growth looks green and healthy, but those first three fingers looks droopy or wilting.. It is overall kinda sad lookin seedling right now and can’t say what is she tryna tell..
Could just dosin up nutes do the magic? Roots looking healthy and there would be root mass for a bigger plant.
Also the main stalk just below the hydroton has like L-shape bend and it has problems to root.. (for now it is covered with coco so it could root) I guess if that would root properly it would create more robust anchor and the stem would start getting thicker and support heavier nodes and leaves.

 

[FelipeBlu]

So is it better to have slightly higher amount of K than N? Started to search more about Phosphorus. Turns out red/purple stems are caused by the lack of Phosphorus. Also older/lower leaves start to curl/wilt down and those brown spots could apper too.

Yes, many plants seem to prefer more K than N. But you can definitely go overboard. If you go much over 250ppm K to 160ppm N, you can start seeing problems with Ca and Mg uptake.

Most plants need far less P than people think. A P def is quite rare - unless it is getting bound up by Ca during mixing and precipitating out as calcium phosphate. Or if the substrate is too cold. Or pH is off.

 

[Roy Growin]

Deficiencies are quite rare with bottle feed, it's usually over-application of some other gunk causing a lock
I do not understand why people try all sorts to turn their plants into spaceships

 

[FelipeBlu]

Something for everyone, I guess.

 

[Verbalist]

9/28 | Day #10 | Week 2


Day 10 update:
Most likely slowest start that Ive ever had… Don’t know if autos are just takin longer to get over the seeding stage.
Started to wonder if they do not like the LED light spectrum or they do not have enough/right light power..
Having 2x 100W LED panels (50cm above the plants) and their color temp is 4500K whitish. Best color temp for vegging would be between 6000-6500K.
Might buy a cooltube today and setup 250w HPS (2100K) on it and put 125w CFL (6400K) in addition for color balance and see if that makes any difference.

~ Started to gently feed coco and soil seedlings. Scooped 0.5L from DWC reservoir and diluted it in half strength with 6pH water.
~ Blackberry Kush (coco) didn’t like up potting since she has been idling last two days… A bit worried if shes damping off since coco needs to stay moist and RW sucks all the moisture on it. There was very little roots sticking out from the RW when did the transplant.
~ Environments been close to perfect. Temps inside the tent are between 22-24C (with 2x Leds), Reservoir water temp steady 20C, RH 45-55%, intake fresh air from outside, added new CO2bag, ”exhaust fan” set to full speed so it creates a little vacuum inside the tent so that only fresh air circulates there.

Blackberry Kush automatic (soil)
Her growth has been the fastest and healthiest so far. BLM soil contains enough nutes for first 1-2 weeks. Ive very gently fed him and mostly been misting it with Cal/Mag water.

Blackberry Kush automatic (coco)
As mentioned above she has been idling last two days like this.. Maybe damaged the roots a bit when transplanted her into the final container.
I’ve fed/mist her with 5.8-6pH water wheres mixed Root Booster and 1/3 strength GHE’s TriParts.

Critical 2.0 XL auto (coco)
She has been extremly slow seedling as well… It is a day 10 since she emerged and she looks half younger.
~ I’ve fed her with:
0.2ml/l Gro,Micro,Bloom
2.5ml/l GHE Root Booster
0.25g/l Silicate Mineral Magic
Tap water pH adjusted to 5.8-6

Critical 2.0 XL auto (DWC)
The problem child…
First three finger leaves got even worse, they look dead as Jesus, but they still keep reachin towards the light, same as serrated leaves.
Newest growth lookin OK. First actual 5 fingers lookin good so far. But the seedlings structure is bit off… main stalk and stem being very thin and it cannot really support any heavier leaves.
I did the res change yesterday with this mix:

When you want to boost the dose, the next mix could be:

0.5ml/L CalMag
0.25ml/L Silica
0.75ml/L Micro
1.5ml/L Grow
0.75ml/L Bloom

This provides:

96 N
26 P
122 K
82 + 19 (tap water) Ca
50 + 1.5 (tap water) Mg
44 S
50 Si

And looks like shes handling it, could probs eat even more to catch up with the lost time…
EC with that mix where 1.2
pH were 6.4 after mixin the new patch and lowered it down to 5.7 (overnight it only climbed to 5.9, so I’ll let it be with that for now)

She still looks so ruff. A bit worried if the stem doesn’t thicken up fast enough because shes bout to open her 3rd node in any second. That weak stem wont carry if foliage only develops.
Should I increase to the GHE’s recommended dosage if nothing major happens? …Which would be 1.8ml/l Grow, 1.2ml/l Micro & 0.6ml/l Bloom (EC would be 1.3 or 1.4 most likely )

Again feels the growth above the ground been idling and roots has taken some spurts. Longest roots are like 20cm (8inches) long.

Have a nice tuesday!

 

[Verbalist]

9/28 Update 2

So decided to buy a Cool tube and try with 250w HPS if the seedlings would respond any better.
Super Plant 250W HPS / 2100K 25% blue 75%red / 34500lm
Ik thats very reddish color temp and seedlings/young plants prefers more like +6000K blue, but at least my last NL’s liked the HPS already at the very beginning. So lets try.

Lamp distance 40cm above the seedlings and temp at the tips 25C + fan circulating the air so its not even that hot.

Also DWC Critical new growth looks ok for now. But any idea why those three fingers are still getting worse? Wondering if it follows up as it grows, which would mean theres still something very wrong..?

 

[FelipeBlu]

I’m starting to see bumps on the five-finger leaves. You have inspected for mites/other pests with a white paper test and/or a loupe, right?

 

[Rexer]

One other thing, @FelipeBlu .... his switching over to HPS lighting, would that change the plants calcium/magnesium requirements? As in it would need less? Genuinely curious on that...

 

[FelipeBlu]

One other thing, @FelipeBlu .... his switching over to HPS lighting, would that change the plants calcium/magnesium requirements? As in it would need less? Genuinely curious on that...

Perhaps - I’m not clear on that myself

 

[Verbalist]

I’m starting to see bumps on the five-finger leaves. You have inspected for mites/other pests with a white paper test and/or a loupe, right?

Yes the first five fingers starting to get worse at their tips… This happened over night.

Quick quote from RQS (fungus gnats):

Otherwise unexplainable plant issues including, but not limited to, pale leaves, spots, brown edges on leaves, and drooping plants. Signs can vary and may appear as other plant issues and diseases.

• When roots are damaged, plants can show various signs of disease including yellow leaves, wilting, spotting, and drooping.

• Symptoms of nutrient deficiencies can occur (sickly growth, leaf discolouration, etc.) despite correct pH and proper nutrients.

• Seedlings weaken, fall over, and die (“damping off”).

• Stunted growth and low yields.

Wondering if they usually born and develop in the soil, and the only one plant on soil (BB Kush) looks ok, but fungus gnat symtpms occurs only on DWC and Coco Criticals.
Coco Critical:

Also found this from under the DWC Critical leave:

It was so small so it was hard to get a pic of it but it looks like some kind of black egg or some shit with some whitish on it

Don’t have a yellow sticky tape so I could 100% identify if theres bugs or not.
Nor do I have Hydroguard… Would Hydroguard with bacillus bacteria help to get rid off the pests?

Don’t think that Ive been dealing with fungus gnats before. Spider mites been there on and off sometimes before, but don’t think its spider mites now tho.
Before I started this round I completely washed and cleaned the tent. Also every time doing a res change Ive been sterilizing the res.

@FelipeBlu fungust gnats would sound most reasonable.. if ordering a yellow sticky tape that would prevent the flys, but how about the medium where they eat and develop? Would hydroguard kill/get rid off them? Or just protect against them? If not how to destroy them from the medium? Do I need some other supplements for that?
Lol haven’t really been dealing with them before..Guess Ive been lucky then.